Hmm... my hands are contantly aching at the moment. Apart from beating in star pickets, digging holes for a hedge and swinging the mattock to clear a whole lot of asparagus fern ( bastard stuff.... thorns with some instant infection coating... nice design mother nature!) I spent the late evening and early dusk last night trying to get control over a 20year growth of Agarve ( however you spell it. Cactus to us other folk) Its turned into a huge mount with giant florets all over the surface, once you get in under the big floretts there are dozens of medium size floretts. Then once you get under the medium size floretts there are hundreds of little ones.... get the picture. So I spent an hour or so pulling out all the little ones and a few of the medium ones that I could. Along with 20 years of leaf litter. I use the term "Leaf" as I dont know the term for a dried up cactus frond thing... They are tough and lightly abrasive and kink up like a leather corkscrew... now imagine shoving your hands repeately into these for an hour or so. Seem like a good idea? Live and learn...
Anyway... suffice to say my hands are aching. A cross between abrasion and some minor infection and vibration agrevating what might be the early onset of arthritus. Another gift from years of manual labour... particularly working in the forge and pounding metal that was not hot enough.... Oh and chopping fire wood... and trees and working in the garden with soil like concrete... its a wonder I still have hands... Mental note to look after them much better.
Back to the weekend that was. We got a lot done, so its all good. General cleaning and washing.... never ends.
The hedge is the major change... oh and a compost bin so we stop bothing the neighbours with wafting smells of decomposition. Actually we asked them and they handn't noticed it, but it was bothering me so ... problem solved via Bunnings again. Must buy some shares in that place... they get enough of my cash.
Back to the hedge. This is the most significant change we have made to the house on the "big" scale of things. It runs across the open side of the yard below the house. Ultimatly it will seperate the verge and road from the yard, which used to be all open and felt really exposed. Just by putting in the temporary trellis ( star pickets and clothes line with danger tape all over it) and the row of lillypilly, suddenly the yard feels more enclosed and protected from the road. Atlest it will be a bit of an obstacle to the children and stop them being able to run staight onto the road. Bring on the Cousins....
I found another tree/bush in the garden that has thorns. Seems to have been a nice topiary kind of thing at one stage but has gone rampant and sprouted uncontrollably. So there is this layer of close packed branches where the old topiary outline was which is now all dead and lots of long stragelly branches errupting from it... time for a power haircut. This is the point I discovered the fine thorns... what is it with spikey stuff in this garden? Half the plants are out to get me in one way or another. Makes me want to borrow the flame thrower and get hostile with them. Nice way to freak out various people... and probably get a fine from the fire brigade. Hmm... perhaps not. Back to loppers and the shredder I think.
Thinking about vicious herbage, I have:
An Orange tree with thorns.
This nasty thing with yellow berries and thorns.(dont know what it is just wish it was dead)
Half the plants along the back fence are toxic( so says the neighbor)
The agarve is pointy but not with true spikes. But all its dried leaves are abrasive so that has to count.
Bloody bindi eyes are swarming throug the lawn.
The Hoop pine drops natures version of barbed wire all over the lawn.
The jasmine doesnt have thorns but is just a pain in the ... *insert least favored spot here*
As for just generally pointy and twiggy... I have three species of cyprus with dead twiggs galore.
There is a reasonable swarm of cobblers pegs around and about.. but they are fairly easy to decimate...
There is some succulent thing that is popping up all over the place ( and getting pulled out) that is toxic ( according to the landscaping guy that came to visit)
Did I forget to mention the asparagus fern... my least favorite of all the fern family. Little bastard is everywhere. Well less places now... its getting grubbed up progressivly. But its just designed mean. The barbs on that stuff break off in your skin and seem to instantly fester.
Ok.. enough... work time.
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